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Player Rules
Terminology Dice Dice are formatted as AdB+CdD+EdF, where capital letters are numbers. The first letter (A, C, E) refers to the number of dice rolled of that type, while the second (B, D, F) refers to the number of sides. When the first number is not present, one die is rolled. Results are added together unless otherwise specified. EXAMPLES: Rolling d4+d8+d12 means you roll one four-sided die, one eight-sided die, and one twelve-sided die. Rolling 3d6 means you roll 3 six-sided dice. Bonus and Modifier These words are largely interchangeable. While a modifier can be positive or negative, a bonus is strictly positive. Both change the result of a roll. EXAMPLES: Mikkelsen and Malek are in a fight. Mikkelsen has his treasured masterwork sword (with a +2 bonus), while Malek has a broken sword (with a -1 modifier). Using their abilities from the Abilities section and their Weapon skill from the Skills section, both make an attack against their enemy. Mikkelsen rolls a 19, which becomes a 25 after adding his Physical bonus and the +2 bonus from his masterwork sword. Malek rolls a 6, which becomes an 8 after adding his Physical bonus and subtracting his broken sword’s modifier. Money Currency is listed in Gold (g), Silver (s), and Copper ©. One gold is equal to ten silvers. One silver is worth ten coppers. Player The real person who is operating a fictional Civilian or Adventurer. Narrator The real person filling this role (Narrator basic rules are listed separately). The Narrator acts as the world, and is the final adjudicator on how rules are obeyed in their games. Raft When taking damage from a source, to “raft” means you drop to a specified health number instead of taking the full damage. After rafting, you will continue to take damage normally. If your health rises back above a raft threshold, you will raft with additional hits. EXAMPLE: Caught in an ambush, Borru and Malek are weakened and cornered. In a desperate rush, they both charge a pair of thugs to escape. Malek is attacked by two thugs, and starts at 35 Stamina. They both flank and hit hard – two hits for a whalloping 29 and 31 Stamina each. In order – Malek drops to (35-29=)6 Stamina, then takes 31 damage and rafts at 0. Borru dodges a thug and rushes past Malek’s opening. Clutching deep but non-lethal wounds, Malek trudges on while Borru escapes unharmed. After finding shelter, Borru patches Malek’s wounds back up to 52. As they creep away from town through the alleys, Malek catches a trap as Borru triggers it. Jumping to Borru’s aid, Malek takes a whopping 114 damage as a cluster of grenades triggers from a tripwire. Both escape, still able to walk and painfully escape – Borru saved by Malek, and Malek rafting at 0 Stamina again. Odds or Evens A mechanic wherein the narrator calls for odds or evens, from a player or the group. Someone must choose odds or evens. A die is rolled – if the result is as the player chose, something works in their favour. If the result is opposite, something works to their detriment. This is a back-pocket mechanic for narrators to resolve unusual situations. Long Odds Similar to Odds or Evens, but when things are really not likely to work out. Two dice are rolled – a player calls odds or evens. If both dice match, things work in their favour. If only one die matches, things still go wrong. If both dice are opposite, things get dramatically worse. EXAMPLES: Malek, Mikkelsen, and Borru meet back up in the streets, and start to run towards the gate, where they tied their horses. They hear thugs approaching both ends of the alleyway – there are two doors, but they’re far enough away that they’ll have to pick one. Borru says to charge forwards. The narrator calls for odds or evens – Borru’s player says odds. A 5 is rolled. The group find an unlocked door, and of all things, tuck themselves in a shed... with a weapon stash. As the thugs escape and the group rearms, Borru grabs a gun... that he doesn’t know how to use. As they reach the gate, the narrator calls to the whole group to roll odds or evens. Jokingly, from the kitchen, the narrator’s roommate calls odds. A 2 is rolled. Their horses are gone. As the group of thugs approach, Borru trips as they run, and is overwhelmed. He loads and fires the gun – having no idea what he’s doing, haphazardly throwing powder and a bullet in. Mikkelsen cringes. The narrator calls for long odds – Borru’s player calls evens. A 3 and a 5 are rolled. Borru blacks out as the gun explodes in his hand... and he’ll awaken later with neither a gun, nor a hand. Civilians Civilians are characters who do not have the experience and skills to qualify as an adventurer. Civilians are vulnerable, and will die quickly if unprotected. To create a civilian, you need a name and descriptor. EXAMPLES: Malek, human trader. Borru, dwarfborn swindler. Mikkelsen, retired vulpe mercenary. When playing a civilian, your descriptor determines your various capabilities. This is qualitative – you know what your descriptor entails you would know, while you likely don’t know things if the descriptor isn’t useful. When performing actions related to your descriptor, you roll d4+d6+d8 (or 3d6). When performing actions unrelated to your descriptor, you roll a d6. EXAMPLES: Malek, Borru, and Mikkelsen are negotiating with guards for an escort to the next town. Malek is good at this because, as a trader, he’s good at negotiating pay. Borru is good at this because, as a swindler, he knows how to get a good deal. Mikkelsen is good at this because he used to do this job, and knows what a good rate would be. All three roll d4+d6+d8 to negotiate. When you are attacked, roll a d6. You must roll below a number to avoid getting hit – this could be diving behind cover, dodging a hit, parrying, or even luckily having an arrow fly an inch from your head. This number begins at 6, and it lowers by 1 every time this roll is performed. When you are hit successfully, you roll a Death Roll. This is a d6. A result of one or lower means you’re knocked unconscious with minimal damage, and awaken a while after the fight ends. A result of six or higher is an instant death. A 2 or 4 is a wound – a non-disfiguring but painful injury (2 is temporary (such as a non-lethal stab wound), 4 is permanent (such as a back injury)). A 3 or a 5 is an injury – a scarring, disfiguring, or dismembering hit (3 is superficial (such as a gouge to the face or a chip off the ear), while 5 is permanent (such as losing an eye or leg)). Adventurers Adventurers are strictly not civilians – while both adventurers and civilians are people, adventurers are the mechanic opposite of civilians: they have the skills and capabilities to defend themselves and civilians, aren’t as vulnerable, and can hold their own in a fight. Adventurers, like civilians, have a name and descriptor – while the descriptor can be used to determine what your character knows, it does not determine skill and capability. When creating an adventurer, you allot Abilities (one is +4, another is +3, another is +2, the last is +1), Skills (8 points), Benefits (one), Drawbacks (one), Species, People, and Equipment (5g, 5s, 5c; up to 20g's worth of equipment, 7 days' rations and supplies). You may speak any number of languages, provided your adventurer could reasonably have learned them. Unlike Civilians – who are either okay or nor okay – you also have Stamina. Abilities You have four Abilities: Physical, Mental, Social, and Magical. Each represents your untrained, preternatural ability – your physical abilities, mental abilities, etc. Abilities can be between 0 and +10. When making Checks, you add this number to the result of the skill roll. When creating an adventurer, you start with +4, +3, +2, and +1, to be allotted where you choose. EXAMPLES: Malek is tired of being weak and vulnerable, and trains to become an adventurer. When his training is complete, he chooses to allot his abilities as such: +3 Physical, +2 Mental, +4 Social, +1 Magical. Miserable from stagnation, Mikkelsen comes out of retirement, training with Malek – he chooses to allot his abilities as such: +4 Physical, +3 Mental, +1 Social, +2 Magical. Malek, when untrained, is more socially apt than Mikkelsen by a longshot – but Mikkelsen is slightly more physically, mentally, and magically apt. Skills Skills, unlike Abilities, represent trained, refined ability. All skills have a default ability associated with them (determining which bonus is added to the skill’s roll), but any ability can be used if your narrator allows it. EXAMPLES: Malek is trying to find a bounty he and Mikkelsen are hunting. He uses Physical Stealth to sneak into a party, then Social Stealth to blend in. Lastly, he uses Mental Stealth to try and figure out where various hiding spots are that their bounty might be using. Skills have four ranks: Untrained, Novice, Trained, and Expert. No skill can be lower than Untrained or higher than Expert. When creating an Adventurer, you have 8 points to spend on your skills. Using a point raises the rank of one skill. When making a Check, you roll your Skill, and add the relevant Ability. If you are Untrained, you roll a d6. If you are Novice, you roll 2d6 OR d4+d8 (your preference). If you are Trained, you roll 3d6 OR d4+d6+d8 (your choice). If you are Expert, you roll 4d6 OR d4+d8+d12 (your choice). Your character knows what rank they have, and their skills can be qualitatively described by their rank. EXAMPLES: Mikkelsen is untrained in stealth – he knows full well he’s no good, so he chooses instead to keep an eye out from the outside of the party. Malek, however, is trained – while certainly not excellent, he can hold his own. The rolls from the previous example (Malek prefers d6s) would first be 3d6+3, then 3d6+4, then 3d6+2. Your Physical skills are Weapon, Brawn, Delicate, Grace, and Craft. Your Mental skills are Arcana, Science, Politics, Doctor, and Specialist. Your Social skills are Understand, Conceal, Convince, Trade, and Perform. Your Magical skills are Elemental, Alchemy, Mortal, Planar, and Ritual. Craft and Specialist MUST be specified (such as Craft: Tailor or Specialist: Monstrology), but you may have several of these skills (such as Craft: Tailor AND Craft: Leatherworker). Specialist acts as an override – if your Specialist skill is more refined than an opponent’s skill, your opponent becomes Untrained for the purposes of that roll. EXAMPLE: Malek, as it happens, knows a decent bit about economics – he’s Trained in Specialist: Economics. When negotiating with nobles, many Politics rolls are exchanged in regards to land and governance – but when people start talking about Economics, they all become Untrained – only Malek has the specialty. Equipment While Civilians have the equipment their descriptor would reasonably entail, adventurers need to actually itemize what they have. When creating an adventurer, you have 20g to spend on equipment, and start with 5g, 5s, 5c in your pocket. Benefits and Drawbacks Benefits and Drawbacks act as overrides and exceptions to the basic rules. Benefits are overall positive, while Drawbacks are overall negative. Only one Benefit may be used at a time unless the Narrator says otherwise*. Drawbacks always apply. * Due to the nature of benefits, they cannot all be balanced together. This is largely a measure to retain game stability – for the most part, benefits combined together often don’t break the game, but it’s important to have the narrator adjudicate. People and Species Everyone, EVERYONE, has a people and species. While civilians don’t use these rules, they still are a part of a civilian’s life. Species refers to your body, your physiology, and your morphology. A draconian is physically a draconian, a vulpe is physically a vulpe, and soforth. People has no species restriction, and refers to the culture that has dominated your upbringing. A draconian could be a Provincial who’s lived there their whole lives, or a member of the Cloud-Speaking diaspora, or a traveller who’s adopted the Roader way of life. You may only have one species. You may only have a maximum of one people for every decade spent in that culture. Species and Peoples come with benefits and drawbacks. Peoples can come in a lot of forms. You might be Native, having been born and raised in the people’s source locale (such as a native-born provincial from Westwatch). You might be an Immigrant, having been born and raised elsewhere but adopting the people whose locale you immigrated to. You might be Diaspora, meaning you are a part of a people without a locale (such as the Roaders or Revivalists). You might be part of an Enclave, a pocket of one people within the locale of another (such as the Sun-Speaking from Little Eastlanding, in Westwatch). Stamina and Healing Your Stamina represents the energy you have available to you. As long as you have Stamina, you can still continue fighting. When you take damage less than or equal to your Threshold, the damage is fully nullified. When you take damage greater than your Threshold, you take full damage. You may choose to use a defense after knowing how much damage is dealt. When Adventurers take damage that reduces them to 0 Stamina or lower, they raft (see Terminology). At 0 Stamina, an adventurer can still walk, run, and fight (within reason, depending on what sort of hit they’ve taken). However, their next hit will be their last. Adventurers have four stages that determine how healing works. Between each stage is a threshold, with some roleplay and mechanical notes. Hurt: 0-50 Stamina When hurt, you may have been subjected to some non-lethal wounds – grazes and scrapes still bleed. While in combat, you cannot properly care for your own wounds, taking 1d6 damage per round. While out of combat, you bleed 3d6 (or d4+d6+d8) damage every 10 minutes, able to hold pressed your wounds and conserve energy. In terms of roleplay, when closer to 0 Stamina, you feel more desperate. The world might begin to spin, you may collapse or need to lean on buildings. When closer to 50 Stamina, you may even stay on the front line a moment, wiping away blood before charging on for one more surge, unflinging. While hurt, you can only heal from Doctoring and Event cards. Remember that not all problems are physical. If you prefer to roleplay as such (or it makes more sense to do so), you may begin to panic, or experience sensory overload, or undergo other non-physical health decay. Hurt-Tired: 50 Stamina You do not raft at 50 Stamina. You take damage as normal, as if the threshold doesn’t exist. In terms of roleplay, when going from Tired to Hurt, you begin to notably weaken from your wounds. A hit that drops you from 51 to 49 on the road might be a small bite from an errant petty monster – and in a few minutes, confused, you might check your midsection, discovering blood. A hit that drops you from 51 to 23, however, might be a too-deep graze that you immediately see is bleeding heavily. Likewise, when going from Hurt to Tired, you take excess healing as normal, as if the threshold doesn’t exist. In terms of roleplay, when going from Hurt to Tired, you begin to feel you’ve recovered from your wounds. Healing from 49 to 51 on the road from an event card, you might be sitting with the party by the fire, and slowly start to raise yourself to sit on a log, finally without assistance. Taking doctoring that brings you from 49 to 67, however, might involve you proudly (but carefully) standing and walking (slowly) from the doctor’s chair. Tired: 50-100 Stamina When Tired, you aren’t wounded – just beat, bruised, and in need of sleep. While closer to 50 Stamina, you might be limping, asking to stop the march every five minutes or so to catch your breath. While closer to 100 Stamina, however, you might be walking as normal, just wondering when you’ll next get a chance to eat and nap. While Tired, you may only heal from food and sleep. Typical field rations are actually pretty vile, and deal 1d6 damage (if this drops you to Hurt, you might vomit after a moment, noticing some blood. This stuff is also not the greatest for your digestive system). Cooked food heals by the result of the cook’s Physical: Cooking check, +1 for each copper’s worth of ingredients, to a maximum of 50. Sleep involves four factors: temperature, shelter, comfort, and safety. If you have 3 factors, you heal 1d6 from sleep. If you have 4 factors, you heal 3d6 (or d4+d6+d8). If you have 2 factors, you do not heal, and must roll odds or evens every two hours to try and sleep. If you have one factor, you rest but don’t sleep, taking 1d6 damage from insomnia. If you have no factors, you take 3d6 (or d4+d6+d8) damage from insomnia. When you are not Tired, you do not heal from sleep, but you still take damage from insomnia. Tired-Ready: 100 Stamina This threshold has no mechanical effect. In terms of roleplay, the tired-ready threshold is usually somewhat more understated – you become more motivated, energized, prepared as you go from Tired to Ready; you might start to tire out, get hungry, get distracted, or get demotivated as you go from Ready to Tired. Ready: 100-150 Stamina While Ready, you feel well-rested and your hunger is sated. Closer to 100 Stamina, you might feel simply more optimistic, less weary than you were an hour ago. Towards 150 Stamina, however, you might feel potent and focused, fresh from training and razor-sharp. While Ready, to heal, you must Practice. This takes two hours in game, and may be combined with other tasks (such as night watch or travel) with the narrator’s approval. During this time, you may roll any of your skills, and roleplay using that skill somehow – maybe talking combat form with a fellow adventurer on the road to heal with Social: Weapon, or brewing potions (carefully) from the back of the wagon to heal with Magical: Alchemy. Ready-Empowered: 150 Stamina At 150 Stamina, you reach the peak of normal performance. You must have exactly 150 Stamina to begin healing above this limit. Dropping from Empowered to Ready from alchemy decay rafts you at 150. All other sources of damage bypass this raft. Empowered: 150-200 Stamina You cannot have more than 200 Stamina. While empowered, you are supernaturally (or perhaps chemically) enhanced beyond normal. Your veins might bulge, your eyes might dilate – the world goes sharper, time moves slower. While Empowered in combat, the high is used up quickly. You lose 1d6 Stamina per round. While Empowered out of combat, you can sit and stew, losing only 3d6 (or d4+d6+d8) Stamina every 10 minutes. You can only heal in this state using drugs and alchemy. Levelling We don't always keep things as we grow - some things are always left behind. As life goes on, scars build and old loves are forgotten. Every adventure, you may level an adventurer. When levelling, pick one option from column A and one from column B. They do not need to match, but they may match if desired. Depending on the type and source of certain benefits and drawbacks, some may not be removable. For example, the Poor Mobility drawback might represent an aggravated back injury that heals with long, intense rehabilitation - but if it represents a permanent injury, it may never go away. You must be able to explain how you learned what you learned while levelling. Every third level, you may gain two column As and one Column B. At will, when levelling, you may gain two Column Bs and one Column A. When you pick one extra Column A, your Relative Level increases by one. When you pick one extra Column B, your Relative Level decreases by one. Your Relative Level when starting is 0. Your Relative Level must be between -5 and +5. EXAMPLE: A skilled fighter is practicing their swordsmanship. For two levels, they increase their Weapon skill and decrease their Social ability - growing reclusive in intense practice, they go from Novice to Expert. Levelling once more (a third time), and adjusting to less time spent practicing, they choose to take two Column As and one Column B. They decide to increase their Death Roll, but regain both lost points in the Social ability - now honed and skilled in combat, and readjusted from the seclusion of practice, they depart on their journey masterful, but on a dangerous road. They have one more Column A than normal. EXAMPLE: Years pass. With five more Column As than normal, the fighter's player feels a bit more powerful than they should be. Newer members of the group are catching up, so their player decides to take two Column Bs and a Column A. Learning to care for their companions, the fighter gains the Tactician benefit, but suffers a battlefield injury - a detonation caused damage to their ear and triggered a concussion, so they take the Sense Loss and Dulled Reaction drawbacks to represent this. They now have only four more Column As than normal.